


Freefalling Through Silence

by unremarkablegirl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Light Angst, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Sam Wilson Needs a Hug, Sam Wilson-centric, Self-Doubt, Self-Worth Issues, Slight Spoilers for Episode 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 22:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30146532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unremarkablegirl/pseuds/unremarkablegirl
Summary: Excerpt: There was a brief moment of silence, after Riley died. Not so much that the world stopped spinning or that the air held still without sound but like his ears were stuffed with cotton and he couldn’t find his balance. Riley had been his balance, his equal, his partner. Riley was gone. After that, that brief moment of unbearable silence, Sam knew he couldn’t ever bear it again. He left.He went back Stateside, set himself up at the VA. It let him talk. It let him fill the air, hold the silence at bay, fill the silence for others like him and let them know that they weren’t alone. He kept moving, kept looking after others, never let himself examine his own insides too closely.  He didn’t want the silence catching up to him.And then, Steve happened. There was a man, perpetually running from silence and loneliness and the ever stillness that came with introspection. There was a man that refused to acknowledge that he needed help. Sam refused to acknowledge that he himself needed help. Refused to acknowledge where this need to save everyone came from. Refused to look back, just kept running, one foot in front of the other, while running his mouth at the same time.*Slight spoilers for ep 1
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, Sam Wilson & Sarah Wilson, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	Freefalling Through Silence

Loneliness isn’t something Sam is accustomed to. He grew up with his sister and his parents, spent half his time out on the water. The door to his house was perpetually open with aunties and uncles constantly streaming in and out. He never had much use for loneliness, never felt the crushing solitude of silence. Joining the airforce didn’t change that. 

There was a brief moment of silence, after Riley died. Not so much that the world stopped spinning or that the air held still without sound but like his ears were stuffed with cotton and he couldn’t find his balance. Riley had been his balance, his equal, his partner. Riley was gone. After that, that brief moment of unbearable silence, Sam knew he couldn’t ever bear it again. He left.

He went back Stateside, set himself up at the VA. It let him talk. It let him fill the air, hold the silence at bay, fill the silence for others like him and let them know that they weren’t alone. He kept moving, kept looking after others, never let himself examine his own insides too closely. He didn’t want the silence catching up to him. 

And then, Steve happened. There was a man, perpetually running from silence and loneliness and the ever stillness that came with introspection. There was a man that refused to acknowledge that he needed help. Sam refused to acknowledge that he himself needed help. Refused to acknowledge where this need to save everyone came from. Refused to look back, just kept running, one foot in front of the other, while running his mouth at the same time. 

And then he was flying again. He didn’t have to run, he could fly and escape the shackles of life as he soared through the sky at neck breaking speeds, never letting himself land, only ever skimming the earth and water with the tips of his fingers. He didn’t have to try so hard to escape the silence anymore. His ears rang with the sounds of wind and air rushing past as he flew. He heard himself laugh, truly and freely for the first time since Riley. It was a full bodied laugh, starting in his stomach and vibrating through his bones as he whipped through the air.

And he was no longer alone. He had Steve and Nat in his ear as he flew, a team on the ground, a new kind of family for when he couldn’t visit his own. He was back in the fight. He was no longer running away from something, but running towards something; flying towards something, flying for something. 

The team grew and he found himself folded into this new kind of family as they continued to fight. It was good and then, suddenly it wasn’t. But he wasn’t alone. His family was smaller, fractured, broken and hiding but they were together. It was a solitude withstood arm in arm. And then it all went to shit. Five years came and went, a fight like nobody's business and then bleakness. Building lives from the ground up, wondering after things and looking on in awe at all that had changed and all that had stayed the same. 

He remembered how close he was to shattering when he visited his sister. Visited. Because it was no longer his home for all that his name was on the deed. Visited, because the last he checked his nephews should still be toddling along, not walking and talking and helping out. He should have seen that. He should have been there. He wasn’t. He didn’t give a shit about the time. His family was stolen from him. His youngest nephew hadn’t even recognized him. 

He remembered how Sarah’s fingers had trembled from where they had buried themselves in his jacket as they clung to each other. He remembered the heartbreak in her eyes when his own had flitted behind her, with a clear question. They had stayed silent, then. Instead turned their attention to the kids, reintroducing them to him, acting as if he hadn’t lost out on five years of their lives, five years of memories. 

It was only after they had gone to bed that the two of them had sat on the porch, beer bottles in hand and they spoke. Not freely, not without pauses nor hesitation. They were Wilsons, they were made to help and take action, they were not made to speak of their own feelings, of their own problems. They were meant to deal with them. The night was filled with false starts, stuttering sentences and a few tears. The silence was filled with humming, starting from Sam, originating from childhood memories and hours spent out on the water, learning patience. He wondered if that was where his fear of silence started, out there on the waves with his mother while she hummed and sang, a gentle noise to the backdrop of lapping waves and bird calls. The night ended with the sun and they went on their way, he and his sister, never acknowledging it. They returned to lives lived adjacently, twisting and twining together whenever Sam had the chance to interrupt her steady flow of everyday life. 

But, after all that? After all these years filled with family and teams and loss? Now? Now Sam wasn’t sure if he was alone, if he was ready to be alone, if he should start running again. He knew he shouldn’t. Knew this thinking was pointless. Knew that he had started running, flying, already. He had felt the itch when Steve—gnarled and aged with an unknown life, filled with unknown memories, a strange spark in his eyes—had handed him the shield. It was more than a symbol. The trust in Steve’s eyes had hung heavier than the weight of the shield. 

He had kept it in its bag, but had not hidden it away. It stood in the corner of his room, a constant reminder of the trust that Steve had placed in him, trust that he wasn’t sure he deserved. For all that he had had Steve’s back in countless fights, this was about more than that. This was about rising up to fill the role, bringing back life to the symbol and remind a whole people that it was not an empty promise, that Captain America was not a puppet to be strung up and waved around, to be manipulated by politicians and twisted by the news media. He wasn’t sure if he could handle that. If he should. If he wouldn’t crack under the pressure. 

There was only one time he had taken the shield out of its bag. The day of Steve’s funeral. He hadn’t brought it to the service, it felt disingenuous to reduce Steve to the shield, to reduce him to accomplishments tied to America. He was a man of good honour, a man who, for all his patriotism, was capable of loving his country with open eyes. This was not Captain America’s wake, it was Steve Roger’s funeral and it was time to put Steve to rest as the man he was, not as the things he had done. 

Bucky hadn’t shown up to the funeral. Sam had felt the weight of questioning gazes along his back, had dared the others to ask when he shook their hands but no one did. Bucky was complicated. Bucky was a man running from a past a century long with a rap sheet of unknown lengths, trying to fill in the blanks. He would refuse help, had refused help. Had refused Sam. Sam didn’t take it personally. He didn’t want to push. He was good at that, good at waiting, he could wait the man out. Would be there to welcome him with open arms and a quip that hid a searching gaze and steady hands as he stood ready to catch him, should he fall. 

Sam knew he had to stop trying to save everyone, but how could he? He’d never been able to save the ones that had mattered, and now he had to put in the work to ensure that no one else slipped through his fingers. It didn’t matter that he had already failed, that Nat was gone, that Tony was gone, that Steve was gone. It didn’t matter that he kept failing, that he kept falling short, that his wings could never carry him as fast as he needed. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. 

He had to keep going, keep searching, keep reaching for the next one with arms outstretched. It was part of the reason he wasn’t sure he could take up the mantle. His need to help others, to keep striving forward, it was borne of selfish intentions, wasn’t it? He wasn’t as selfless as he could be, as he should be, he was only searching for a way to fill the silence and run from ghosts. 

That was all that had run through his mind when he had gotten back from Steve’s wake. That was all that had run through his mind when he had slipped the shield from its casing and laid it in his lap. He had trailed his fingers over the service, skipping and skimming over the shine of it, almost scared to touch it, to mar it. Absentminded, he hummed to himself as he sat there, still so scared of the weight of silence. That had been how Bucky had found him: on the floor, still in his suit, tie only the slightest bit undone and head bent over the shield in his lap. 

Bucky hadn’t said anything at first, still so silent, still so scared to speak, almost as if he were scared of the reminder of his existence. He had settled cross legged next to Sam, silent and observant. Their knees brushed together, deliberate. Sam had chanced a glance upwards only to find Bucky’s gaze steady on the shield, the symbol that Steve had become and that Steve had taken for himself, molded for himself. 

Sam continued humming, wondering if Bucky had learned to wrap himself in silence like his own type of shield or if he had simply tired of running and let it drag at him like an anchor. He didn’t dare ask, knowing not to push. 

He didn’t know how long they sat there before Bucky sighed and leaned over to grasp the shield’s edge. Sam noted that he had very carefully chosen not to use his metal arm, smirked a little knowing he wasn’t the only one that felt unworthy of touching the shield. He let go, let Bucky pack it away, watched Bucky as he moved around his room before turning to where Sam sat on the floor. 

Sam only tilted his head up, held Bucky’s eye and spoke, “You gonna go visit?”

Bucky ignored him, typical. “What’re you gonna do with it? Training takes time.”

Sam blinked. Blinked again, stared, couldn’t come up with an answer. The way Bucky said it, it seemed so easy, so obvious that Sam would take up the mantle. That Sam deserved the mantle. That Sam could replace Steve and be the symbol and the man behind the symbol and bring hope to people. It was disconcerting. It left him dizzy. He continued to stare, wondering if he had heard wrong but Bucky’s gaze was a steady thing as he waited for an answer. 

Sam heaved a breath, swallowed, answered, sealed his fate and the fate of the shield, “It’s not mine, Buck, I can’t use it.”

He held Bucky’s eyes, wanting to see his reaction, forgetting that the man was well versed in hiding his reactions, in tailoring his body language. He gave away nothing, only nodding, as if to himself before turning to leave. 

It was only when he reached the bedroom door that he spoke. “That’s a mistake, Sam. I hope you know that.” 

He left then, just as silent as he had entered. 

Sam stayed on the floor, unknowing of how long he sat there, no longer humming, but freefalling through the silence that threatened to suffocate him. He couldn’t escape the silence. He needed to escape the silence.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr to talk [@unremarkablegirl](https://unremarkablegirl.tumblr.com) :)
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos much appreciated


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